FORMER CLERK AT LA JOLLA HIGH TARGET OF PROBE

Auditors find flaws, $26.9K taken from student fund

A former La Jolla High clerk is under investigation after auditors determined she removed more than $25,000 from student activity funds and used accounting tricks to cover it up, San Diego Unified School District officials said.

The investigation stems from a 52-page audit of La Jolla High’s associated student body funds, raised for the purpose of paying for student activities. The audit reviewed $1 million raised and $915,000 spent in the 2011-2012 school year.

In addition to the missing money, the report found other deficiencies with the accounts, which are supposed to be spent on student extracurricular activities or purposes that benefit the entire student body. According to the report:

• More than $200,000 in spending was not backed up by receipts or other proper documentation. As a result, the report states, auditors could not determine the reasonableness of the expenditures.

• The school used activity funds to pay employees — including one retired employee and Advanced Placement test proctors — for services. Employees are supposed to be paid with district funds.

• The principal transferred $26,000 from an ASB account to his own discretionary account to pay a construction company for building a wall, drainage and water proofing around the football field, which should have been paid for with district funds.

• ASB funds were used to purchase fireworks for the school’s homecoming celebration. District rules prohibit fireworks on school grounds.

• Funds collected for transcripts weren’t turned into the district as required.

• 18 students were paid nearly $4,000 for participating in one program. The money was labeled as a scholarship, even though it was not limited to educational purposes.

• The selection for the yearbook publisher — which cost nearly $100,000 in ASB funds — was done without a competitive bid.

In response to the findings, La Jolla Principal Dana Shelburne and Area 3 Superintendent Julie Martel said the school would comply with all of the district’s recommendations to ensure its ASB funds are properly managed.

“As Principal Shelburne’s supervisor, I expect him to hold the financial secretary, the ASB adviser and club advisers accountable for the implementations of practices that assure compliance with district requirements,” Martel said.

Calls to Shelburne and Martel at their offices were not returned.

San Diego’s audit and finance department has zeroed in on misuse of ASB funds in recent years, as a number of schools have been criticized for loose financial control of student-body money.

Stephen Carr, San Diego Unified’s director of the office of internal audit, said the district is currently working on an ASB training process that will be rolled out in the next few months. As of now, however, he said that schools have access to the policies and procedures, and they must be followed.

“Those policies and procedures are readily available,” Carr said. “The training is just one more leg in the chair that says you have no reason to do the process incorrectly.”

The most serious findings dealt with the dealings of the financial clerk, who used a series of accounting manipulations to shift money from one account to another account to cover missing moneys, the report said.